


Here

by Themistoklis



Category: Chaos Walking - Patrick Ness
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 01:41:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themistoklis/pseuds/Themistoklis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six months since the new settlers landed. Six months, and Todd is still asleep. Viola is still at his side. Unwilling to take a cure until Todd recovers, 1017 is fading fast. But Todd begins to feel as if he's figured something out...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phantom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantom/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy it, Phantom!
> 
> I tried to style the story a little like the books with my limited CSS knowledge. You can also view it normally, just hit "hide creator's style" at the top of the page.

[Todd]

How much time has passed? Cuz I can’t tell nothin in this place--

this place that ain’t a place at all--

Just a sea of voices, and I think I’ve heard every voice on the whole damn planet, I think I could pick them out one by one if I needed to, I think it’s easier and easier to find one in an ocean of voices--

Maybe time isn’t passing at all…

and no, wait,

w a i t

It’s not just time that’s missing, it’s voices, too, ’cept it’s near impossible to count something that isn’t there, that’s why I have so much trouble knowing if what time has gone, but I know from a knot in the middle of me that there’s something missing and that no matter how far I see I can’t put my finger on something I can’t see--

That I can’t _hear_ \--

I’d have sworn I had it for a minute, it was there--

why can’t I remember--

Viola?

No, I can hear her voice, I’m sure of it, so that can’t be what’s missin

i can’t see it for myself and there’s all the voices and memories that flood me and keep me afloat every moment, that build and build and build under me so i go from feeling like i’m crawling on mud to walking on stone

they show me so much but there’s something i still can’t see

_Viola?_

No, it’s not her, I hear her, in snatches of sound

_“...I promise not to correct you...”_

THERE!

Any time I hear her voice I feel a surge in me, and the knot in the middle of me comes a bit undone, and I think that I’m that much closer to hearing and seeing for myself but it never comes, I always wobble and fall back into the dark and her voices is gone--

I think I won’t be able to wake up until I can know for sure what’s missin, what I’m not hearing, and hold onto it long enough to name it and spread it out, cuz everyone I can hear and see through seems like they know but none of them mention so maybe they’ve forgotten

so many new voices so many so much more confused than the rest so many so many somanysomanysomanysomanysomany

So what am I missin in all that Noise--

  


{Viola}

“No,” I say, squaring my shoulders. One of them aches a bit from where I fell and banged it on a rock the other day, trying to do laundry by myself.

It seems like I’m never by myself anymore.

Maybe not ever again.

Mistress Lawson lets out a sigh, but it sounds like one she had at the ready, like she knew that I was going to refuse and she already scripted out what she was going to do. “You can’t keep putting this off, Viola. You’re a young woman now, and people expect--”

“People can expect what they want.” I clench my fists at my sides. “I’m doing what I need to be doing.”

We’re standing a bit away from Pathway’s End. At least, it’s within eyesight. Mistress Lawson doesn’t feel comfortable getting any closer than this apparently. Which is stupid, because she lives in the new settlement, and there are Spackle coming and going from there every day, especially now that more and more people are streaming out to start farms in the good weather. I may not go into the city myself but I know that much is going on. Ben and Wilf bring me updates when they come.

And it seems it’s hard to ignore the Spackle Noise even when I’m sleeping nowadays, so I can’t help but know about the city I’ve only seen a couple of times in person. I know I don’t need to go there again, though.

Not for a while anyway.

“I understand that you don’t want to leave Todd,” Mistress Lawson says. “But you’d be doing him more good by helping prepare the world for when he heals.”

The doubt in her voice is so thick I feel like I could cut it with a knife. Even the Spackle wandering around the camp, who have faced such a sharp learning curve when it comes to human women, have a ripple of mistrust whenever Mistress Lawson comes around.

She looks at the tent over on the other side of camp where Todd is, and waves vaguely with one hand. “Do you want to be so far removed from the rest of us that you get no say in the building of this new world?” she asks.

“I’ve had my say.”

What had all that fighting been about if it wasn’t a say? My eyes slide over to Todd’s tent. What is _that_ for if it isn’t a say?

No more fighting. No being like the Mayor. No more.

“You haven’t spent more than three nights in the city since your people arrived,” she protests. Maybe I’ve knocked her off script now, I can’t tell. “You haven’t had a say, Viola. And if you want to retain a place in this world you need to seriously consider changing that.”

I inhale and press my palms against my hips, trying not to bristle too much in front of Mistress Lawson.

I’m not sure exactly what news she’ll bring back to the settlement about me, but I don’t want the images from the Spackle to back up the worst of what she could tell people. Especially since I think Bradley still has his reservations about me, after all that happened. The last time I saw him he’d been drawn and awkward, echoes in his Noise of the hours he spent briefing all the new settlers on what had happened before they arrived.

Mostly new women settlers. The new men had been fumbling through holding just basic conversations at that point. Though I think Bradley of anybody was the best to help them out with that.

“Me and Todd built as much of a place to rest as we could,” I say, my voice shaking just slightly.

“That’s not enough,” Mistress Lawson says, flatly. Her eyes are sharp and the Spackle passing by us have a rustle in their Noise. “We need you to act as a go-between to help the new people see what needs to be done here.”

“ _You_ need me to, you mean,” I interrupt. Light flares in my head. “I’m not going to make people listen to you just because.”

She glares at me full-out. “Viola,” she says, crisply, “we only have so much time to shore up the foundation of this new society. The next crisis is coming. It always does.” She sounds grim, and the corners of her mouth are pulled down. “The question is if we’ll be able to weather it when it does.”

“I’ll come when I can come with Todd,” I say, refusing to back down.

Mistress Lawson just shakes her head and leaves.

He is going to wake up, I think to myself. That’s what all this time is about. That’s why I’m here every moment I can be. I turn my back on the direction Mistress Lawson’s retreating towards and quick-step over to Todd’s tent.

My vision is getting blurry and my heart is in my throat even though I keep telling myself it’s only a matter of time. Everyone says it’s only a matter of time. His chest looks better, I know, because I watch the Spackle re-apply the curing paste every day.

It may have been six months since the settlers landed but I can’t unloose even a tiny part of myself to think that I’ll never see him open his eyes again. _Todd._

  


[Todd]

_Todd._

Viola? Is my mind making up sounds again?

Or is that you?

  


(The Sky) 

The Land remain strong even though I grow weaker by the day. I can see that they stretch across this planet more than even the 5,000 Clearing ever could. What seemed like an enormous number now feels like nearly nothing, fading in importance each day.

The Land carry pictures to me constantly of what I cannot see for myself: that the Land in the deserts are still alone, and live as they have, except that they know the Clearing is here to stay, and there is some resentment there. That the Land in our valley and river homes keep a count of the Clearing and even come and go with relative freedom from their city and the new farms, but that they, too, seem to fold in on themselves the way the voiceless Clearing always appear to do.

It is still a struggle for the Land to listen where we are used to seeing.

As the Sky I should be leading--

Instead I am here, on the other side of Pathway’s End, and the irony of it all does not escape me. Nor should it. Poised for weeks to kill the Source as he mended and now I am slipping further into the floating state he’d been trapped in. If this is the end of me then I should at least show the Land something to carry themselves on with--

But instead--

But instead--

I know no more of how to deal with the voiceless than I did before the 5,000 Clearing landed on this planet. I know no more of how to help the Land overcome the Clearing who howl and write in their voices, who back away from them like they are fire. I know no more.

Nor can I see within the Land a Sky who might follow after me. And since I fade more and more with each breath I take, I know that the Land must have a Sky, must continue to have a Sky, or else facing the coming years will be even worse than the war, even worse than 

I believe that the Land would select a Sky on its own if necessary but I do not want to press them to that option--

I want to do one thing right as Sky--

One thing--

But the Knife’s one in particular will still not speak to me. And, voiceless, I cannot try to see in her what she will not share aloud.

I understand.

The band burns on my arm and leeches into my blood. That is what calls me away from this world, an inch at a time. I wonder whether there will be a sudden end to it or whether I will lose any ability to recognize when an end is coming.

The Land has shown me a careful removal of some bands, the cure strong enough to allow that level of surgery without the women dying afterward. The women are put to sleep for it to keep them from pain and so the surgeries have been silent affairs, even more devoid of sound than stories of the Clearing women usually are.

I instruct the Land to interact with the Clearing as much as they are comfortable. For the most part we remain separate, but there is an interest in rebuilding the ruined agriculture and a strong idea that circulates through the Land that planning so together will stave off a hard winter. I can see more of us coming together with the Clearing who want to move from the main settlement to work with the planet, and I can see that by showing them the right things, the Land will benefit in the long run.

It does not feel like enough.

The Source remembers none of his recovery. He recalls things he learned while he was neither awake nor asleep, but he does not remember how he was healed, or why he was able to be pulled from that nothing-state at the will of the previous Sky.

I put the Knife where he is. I am the reason that he is still beyond our reach even though we administer our best medicines to his body. I am the cause. And yet. And yet--

I have no answers -- for the Land, for myself, for the Clearing, for the Knife’s one in particular -- on when he will open his eyes. I cannot draw him out of his nothing-state.

I am too weak.

But if the Knife will not recover, then neither will I.

I do not deserve a cure when I risked so much for petty vengeance. When I nearly allowed the Land to be thrust back into a war we had finally come to end, just to pull the trigger on the Knife, who carried more regret than I thought capable in one of the Clearing. If the Sky is to die, then it will be to burn into the eternal memory of the Land the lengths to which we cannot go ever again, and the risks that are not worth taking.

The Source visits once in a while to bring news that I already know from the Land. Except his interpretation of the voiceless women is more thorough, more practiced. Sometimes I wonder if it is not also more biased. I trust the Land more than I trust the Source, though I am increasingly unsure whether there is really a difference any longer.

I see a flicker in the deepest parts of the Source. He believes I should take the cure. He believes it’s in the best interest of the Land and the Clearing that I recover, even as he wars within himself to see me as the Sky and not merely the blast of a gun that nearly slayed his son.

I believe he knows that I see myself in the same ways.

But if the Knife will not recover, then neither will I. And the Land will be led into the future by a new Sky, with the memory of what killed me, and what could have killed the Land itself.

And I come to believe that the Knife will not recover without the voice of his one in particular, a girl without a voice, who will not see me and cannot speak to me, who waits and waits but may not be able to pull the Knife from his nothing-state--

And I come to believe that--

I come to believe--

I am so w e a k now…

I come to be lie … ve…

the voice… the voice of the Knife’s one in particular...

  


[Todd]

Viola?

I remember more now--

There’s still so much in this world that I can’t see, that isn’t coming to me, and I know that there’s something missing that no one seems to think about too hard, or that I can’t hear them thinking about. It’s a big hole of nothing except now I can remember more and--

I remember your name, and using it to protect myself, and fight--

I remember how strong it made me, and how it kept me from being sucked into something I didn’t want to be--

Can I use it again?

Viola?

_Viola?_

  


{Viola}

I can’t sleep.

I rub the heels of my hands against my eyes. My head has hurt since Mistress Lawson left. There was a tea that one of the Spackle gave me, but it didn’t help, and the bitter taste is still on my tongue despite scrubbing at my mouth after drinking it.

It feels like there’s a split down the middle of my skull. I take my hands away from my eyes and press my palms against my head, pushing in, like I might be able to mend things and make it better. If I could sleep it off then I would probably forget about the pain, wake up without it, but ooh, it hurts so badly right now.

If I wasn’t alone maybe it would hurt less. But I have to take care of myself out here. The Spackle are taking care of Spackle things, and of Todd, and if I ask them to take care of me, too, there’s less care to go around.

I wonder if I should try the tea again.

I wonder if I should lie down on the floor of Todd’s tent. My head hurts too bad to read to him anymore, or even talk, but maybe being near him will help me sleep. Though his bursts of Noise are few and far between (even, yes, six months after the settlers landed) even the hope of hearing him makes me feel better sometimes, so maybe it would work now…

I get to my knees and push against the ground, wobble on my feet. It takes both hands to open the door of the tiny tent I sleep in when I need more room to stretch out, or a pretend kind of privacy without feeling like I’m being pulled into the voice of the Land, which is what it feels like sometimes when I’m sitting with Todd...

The night is so dark it hurts my eyes.

There’s only a faint glow of light from the stars and a campfire somewhere across the Spackle camp. I can’t see any light at all from the direction of the settlement. If that wasn’t typical, it might make me worry. They haven’t built back up enough for nighttime lights…

With my hands against my head, pressing down against the pain, I walk toward Todd.

  


[Todd]

I think I know what I might be missing now--

I think I know--

I hear and see so much but that big chunk of what’s missing is Viola, too, except I still have her inside me, she’s been a part of me for so long, and now that I can remember using her name, now that I remember the power she gave me--

I think I can give some of it back--

I think I can fill in the some of hole of what’s missing in this world--

Viola--

_Viola--_

**VIOLA!**

  


(The Sky)

I sit straight up with my eyes opened wide.

What was that? I demand, of everyone around me.

The Land shows me an echo of what I just heard, one burst of sound so loud that it overcame the aches and pains in me to pull me nearly to my feet. The name of the Knife’s one in particular.

Her name, from his voice--

How can it be?

I reach out an arm. As weak as I am, I must know, I must see for myself--

  


{Viola}

I have my hand on the door of Todd’s tent when my knees buckle.

I fall forward as the Spackle guards turn to see what’s happening -- or maybe they turn just before I fall, maybe they know what’s happening before I know it -- or maybe they don’t turn at all and I just imagine it--

But I am on my knees now--

And then I am on my hands and knees, as my palms slap against the ground--

And my head is _splitting open--_

_MY hEAd iS SPLittiNG_

  


(The Sky)

 _The Knife’s one in particular,_ I show, urgently. My hands grip at the arm of the first one to come to me, and I am on my feet for the first time in weeks. The fever burns underneath my skin and the Land pulls me forward, one step after another.

Before we are in the night air I can see the swarm around the Knife’s one in particular, and I can see with a mounting horror that we are making it worse as we crowd around, like parents to a newborn child displaying its first words--

_Stop!_

  


{Viola}

I open my mouth and scream, except I hold my breath at the same time, but all the Spackle who have rushed into Todd’s tent after me flinch back as if I shrieked loud enough to make their ears burst--like my head is bursting now--

_EVERytHInG HurTS MAKE IT SToP_

_Stop!_

I hear it, no, see, but it’s far away, but it’s right in front of my face--

The Spackle who came to my side back up. If they were holding me a moment before I can’t remember. Their Noise buzzes with images of me, of myself, so I feel like I’m in a circle of mirrors, and in every one I look a mix of better and worse than before, but never the same, I don’t look anything like I did in the reflection of the water when I was doing laundry--

I look like I’m screaming without opening my mouth at all--

_MaKE iT SToP i remember the first time i saw a spackle WHY AREn’T You HELpinG ME i remember the first moment i knew my parents were gone MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP_

The Spackle aren’t next to me anymore but they’re still there, but they aren’t helping me, and I have so many things in my head that it hurts worse than ever, I remember things but I see them at the same time, and all of them are staring at me like they don’t know what to do with me, why aren’t they helping, do they even know how--

Then there are fingertips on the side of my face--

I choke, and raise my eyes. _Todd?_

  


[Todd]

 _I’m here, Viola,_ I show, over and over and over. _I’m here and I brought you here too._

I fell to the ground the moment I got up, but it’s okay, because I fell in front of Viola, and that’s as far as I needed to go, anyway.

She looks so different. I can see the last image I had of her in my head, and I show it to her, and she looks at me like she’s never seen herself before, and I realize she hasn’t, not when she can replay the words and images in her own head, and I feel from her that it’s different to have Noise, but I never know cuz I can’t remember things not bein this way--

_I’m here, Viola._

It’s catching up to me that I’m tired, so tired. The last thing I really remember, crisp and clear, is my chest burning, and it itches now but it doesn’t hurt, but I’m still so tired -- that’s why I fell, but it’s okay, I fell in front of her--

_I’m here and I brought you here, too._

  


(The Sky)

I lean on the Land who brought me to the Knife’s tent. I know I wouldn’t be able to keep myself on my feet without them. I am too weak to be out of bed, surely, but I have to see this.

The Knife and his one in particular are crouched together on the ground. I know that the Knife has noticed me because I can see it in his Noise, which sounds more like the Source’s than the Clearing’s, now, and I gesture to the Land on either side of me to take me away and back to my own tent.

The Knife’s one in particular said she never wanted to see me again. I don’t think now is the time to ask whether she still feels that way.

Each step feels like a league and as if it might take a year. I struggle to keep myself upright even with the Land’s help. The pure frenzy of the moment, of hearing the Knife’s voice loud and clear for the first time since I nearly ruined everything, has rushed out of me and left me weak.

But it’s true. I saw it for myself. The Knife is awake.

And his one in particular has found her voice.

 _Will you take the cure now?_ one of the Land ask, as they lay me back to bed.

I shut my eyes. _The Knife has recovered,_ I show, in answer.

His one in particular’s voice echoes me. I don’t think she hears me through the newness of it all, though.

  


{Viola}

_He’s back._

My head feels sore and tender from edge to edge, and my brain is pulsing, and it feels like the whole world is rushing to get inside of me all at once, and it feels like every part of me is trying to scream at everyone around me, and I can’t stand, and my legs feel so weak--

But--

But his arms are around me, he’s holding me up, and it’s real, I’m holding on so tight in case he disappears but I know it’s real--

I know it because I can see it in the Spackle’s Noise, and I can feel his Noise--

_Todd’s back._

It’s real and it’s not going to fade away from me if I can’t hold on forever--

_You’re back._

  


[Todd]

_I’m here, Viola._

_I’m here._


End file.
